Dr Rachel Melsom, Palliative and End of Life Care Digital Transformation Lead, Surrey and Sussex, Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust 

Dr Rachel Melsom began her medical career in her 40s, and has worked in acute hospitals, community, and hospice settings for the past 13 years. Her focus has always been palliative and elderly care.

As Digital Transformation Lead she brings all her experience across media, finance, and medicine to bear on all she does. Working with colleagues from Sussex Community and University Hospitals Sussex, she has developed the Comfort Tracker – a remote monitoring app that enables proactive, integrated care for patients who want to live comfortably, and die comfortably, at home.

“Working together as a team – from acute and community NHS trusts, from medical and nursing backgrounds, and incorporating lived experience – we have created a digital solution that meets the needs of patient, carer and healthcare professionals across all settings and geographical locations. The Comfort Tracker really demonstrates the NHS at its best: collaborative, compassionate and always striving to support patients and families when and where they need us most, from cradle to grave.”

The Comfort Tracker is a powerful example of the shift from hospital to community, and analogue to digital and is already helping Sussex deliver the 10 Year Health Plan for England. It is evidenced as improving timely care provision, reducing moral injury for clinicians, has high patient and carer approval, and can offer information flow seamlessly across multiple service providers – for example, hospice care – wherever they need contact with the patient.